Near Dreams

What is travelling without a good book? And what better reading than the local writers while visiting a new country? As I travel throughout Madagascar, I realize that the choice is immense in terms of oral tradition. More recently I discovered a great poet: Jean Joseph Rabearivelo. He is probably one of the most important of African poets writing in French, considered to be the father of modern literature in his native land. JJ Rabearivelo's writting sounds very modern, though influenced by romantic. While reading his verses, you can almost feel the suffering of cultural clash of an intellectual caught between two cultures in the first quarter of the 20th Century. Inspired by Verlaine or Baudelaire's life style, JJ Rabearivelo followed the "boheme" movement... and lived the poor, suicidal, sick, extravagant life of many artists of his time.

Amongst the several volumes of poetry he wrote, "Near-Dreams" (1934) is really an achievement. First of all, he simultaneously wrote each poem in both French and Malagasy ; second, for a self educated man harassed by colonial authorities and ravaged by drugs, JJ Rabearivelo managed to transcend his passion for French poetry and his deep-felt understanding of Malagasy culture to deliver intense verses.

"Its taste will be sweeter,
because it was pregnant with desire
And with fearful love and scented blossoms -
Pregnant by the love sun."
Pomegranate (lines 9-13)

A true poet in the romantic sense, JJ Rabearivelo wrote beautifuly and lived intensely until his suicide at age 36...